(Un)health kick, at the movies, the first Czech Babybox baby

I’m still feeling rather punky, despite having set a personal record (8 days without a smoke) and having started exercising again. I haven’t touched a drop of booze or inhaled a trace of chronic for over a week. And I still wake up feeling kind of hungover and black-lunged. I thought health kicks were supposed to be healthy?

With the exception of a rather miserable trip out to Kika in Pruhonice on Saturday (I can only stand ginormous IKEA -like furniture shops for about 15 minutes, then my temper goes real foul), I have been pretty much rooted in Prague 9. I feel the need to apologise to friends who have been trying to get me out, and to thank them for keeping me in their thoughts. With any luck I’ll be back in action by the end of next month. One thing’s for sure – I am never selling my soul again like I did with this project of history essays. The money was good, but the conditions are so bad that I’m actually starting to feel like I was better off when I was collecting welfare in Ottawa nearly a decade ago.

Finally saw a couple of movies that reinstilled my faith in Czech cinema: Fimfarum Jana Wericha (Jan Werich’s Fimfarum, 2002) and Smradi (Brats, 2002). Fimfarum is simply Czech imagination at its finest – inventive fairy tales for all ages and dark, twisted and beautiful stop-motion animation. If I can find a place that is showing it with subtitles, I will definitely try to catch Fimfarum 2 , which opens this Thursday, on the big screen.

Smradi features top-shelf acting, particularly the movie’s “brats” who hold their own when sharing the screen with the always-brilliant Ivan Trojan.

I’d rave more, but I think I’ve been devoting a bit too much blog space to movies these days.

Well, one more thing – Jitka and I watched Bad Boys last night. No, not the buddy supercop ego trip starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, but the unbelievable Rick Rosenthal classic starring a badass pre-Madonna Sean Penn and a pre-Brat Pack Ally Sheedy. When I say “unbelievable” I mean easy to discredit – the conditions in the correctional facility are utterly ridiculous. How are we supposed to believe that while in the clink juvenille delinquents can take woodworking classes, are not locked in their cells, have easy access to corrosive and explosive materials… the list goes on. The movie’s entertainment value lies in all the “Oh, yeah, right” it provokes.

On a final note, I knicked the following from the Prague Monitor – a Babybox has been used for the first time in the Czech Republic. Jitka and I saw one of these things in Hloubetin quite a while ago and were a bit shocked. I’m not really sure what to make of these things and what to think of the women who actually use them – there are much better ways of putting kids up for adoption.

I’m with you on the 2002 Fimfarum – I was quite enchanted by it, though my English Seagal-loving flatmates didn’t find in it what I did. I haven’t looked, but would love to find a dubbed version of that for my nieces (7 and 5). Looking forward to the new one too.

Hey Joey, good to hear from you. Haven’t seen a dubbed copy of Fimfarum anywhere, and not sure I’d want to – I can’t imagine anyone reading Werich’s fairy tales as gracefully as Werich himself. Though whoever did the narration for Fimfarum 2 has done an admirable job, from what I’ve heard so far.

Yo, what’s wrong with Seagal? ;-)

6 to 7 weeks? Day-um… When Jitka quit she was coughing and horking a lot for a couple of weeks, but she didn’t feel the nausea I’ve been feeling. Actually, I think I’ll take the nausea over the coughing and horking…

Richard, good to hear from you too – I sent you an email re. your visit. Looking forward!